Starting farming activities and breeding animals, including pigs, first of all you need to take care of the housing of future pets, as well as their food. In order for the pigs to be well-fed and healthy, you need to properly equip a place for feeding and prepare for them a suitable feeder.
Pigs feeder: basic requirements
Feeding livestock is the most important part of both the health and the life of the animal. The health of her and the offspring, the quality of meat and lard depends on how the pig will eat, so the feeder plays a very large role.
The main requirements include:
- type and size of the feeder;
- sanitary condition.
For the size of the feeder, the number of pigs that will eat from it matters; size and age of individuals and piglets (feed adults and piglets need to be separately); gender of animals (boys need more food than girls).
The length of the feeder depends on the "population". Children up to two months old need 20 cm, and adults need at least 30 cm. A nursing mom (sow) needs 40 cm, and a large boar - all 50 cm.
Familiarize yourself with the nuances of breeding such breeds of pigs as karmala, landrace, petren, Hungarian mangalitsa, Vietnamese vislobryukhaya, red waist, large white, Duroc and Mirgorod.
If the structure is made long, then every necessary distance must be made in order for each pig to have its own “plate”. Liquid and dry food is served animals separately, as well as water is poured into a separate tank.
The remaining requirements for the pork "table" include:
- availability for easy cleaning (after each meal of animals the feeder must be well washed);
- protection from ingestion of extraneous organic and inorganic substances (contrary to the opinion of most people, mumps do not eat everything);
- strong fastening (for protection against overturning and pollution of the open-air cage);
- tightness to prevent spillage and rash.
How to make a feeder with your own hands: 3 ways
Before you start making troughs with your own hands, you need to choose the available tools that will help simplify the process. Such means can be: metal, plastic barrels or an old gas cylinder.
Metal feeder
So-called bunker feeders are usually made of metal - it is an iron structure that allows you to feed the pig in portions, due to the fact that its lower part is the usual divided "plates" and the upper part is a cone-shaped iron box with a narrow bottom. This allows food to get enough sleep after the pigs have eaten an existing portion.
We recommend reading about how to properly organize the nutrition of suckling pigs, as well as why we need castration of pigs.
So, let's proceed to the preparation of the usual bunker (dimensions are calculated for 10 large pigs):
- We take a square shaped tube (about 12 * 12 cm), cut it from one side along the edge, open it, we get two “trays”, and a corner in the middle (the bunker itself will be attached to this angle).
- To prepare the bunker, you will need two thick sheets of metal (length - 60 cm, height - 4 cm, width - about 1-1.5 cm), put them on a long edge parallel to each other at a distance of about 7 cm and weld the ends using suitable sheets metal (it turns out a long rectangle without top and bottom).
- The upper part (the so-called cone) must be made of 4 sheets of metal: 2 wider for the length (to make the length the size of the tray itself) and 2 narrower for the width. We cook in such a way that the result is a four-sided tapered triangle with a hollow center (the volume of food should be 3 buckets of dry food, the height of the bunker - about 15 cm).
- Weld the upper part of the hopper to the bottom (long rectangle).
- We connect the bunker and the feeder so that the middle of the lower part of the bunker coincides with the angle of the feeder (for an even rash of food).
- We take the usual armature, cut into equal parts the length of the width of the tray and weld at the same distance so that only 1 pig can freely put his penny into the tray (thus providing a “plate” to each pet).
Important! Do not make too large bins: the pigs will not be able to stop and will eat until the food stops getting enough sleep. Overeating is very harmful to mumps.
Plastic Barrel Feeder
The easiest will be the manufacture of pork "dinner table" from an ordinary plastic barrel, which you no longer need. The main thing is the environmental friendliness of such a framework (only harmless natural biological substances should be stored in it).
You will probably be interested in reading about how to make a bird feeder and bunker bunker for rabbits.To prepare such a feeder you need:
- Take a barrel and make notes on it on the top or bottom (depending on size: 3 or 4 parts).
Did you know? Oddly enough, but the most interesting feature of the body structure of pigs is that their "penny" can not look at the sky.
- Using an electric jigsaw or other device that is convenient for cutting, cut along lines (there should be several oval long trays).
- To clean all the corners so that the soft nicks do not cut themselves on the bumps.
- Attach to the shed in any convenient way.
Important! It is advisable to make separating beams so that each pig has its own place, and no one else climbs into its plate.
Feeding trough from a gas cylinder
Another relatively easy way for which an old used gas bottle is needed (for example, from propane). It is important to remember that when working with particularly dangerous items, which is just the gas cylinder, you must comply with safety regulations.
We advise you to familiarize yourself with the nuances of keeping pigs on deep litter, and also to read about how to build a room for pigs.
So, after the gas bottle has been found, it is necessary to check it: to do this, take a soap solution, lubricate the place where the gas should come from, and open the valve: if there are no soap bubbles, the bottle is empty.
This is followed by the following procedure:
- It is necessary "under the root", that is, completely, grind the valve and its base with a grinder. It is important to remember that in this case no sparks should appear, for this it is necessary to water the cut point with water during the cutting process.
- After that, water is poured into the resulting hole to the edges of the container and is constantly shaken to flush residues of gas vapor from the walls.
- The next step is to determine the size of the troughs: you can cut in half and feed individuals of the same size, weight and sex, and you can cut one part smaller - for piglets, and more for adult pigs.
- The cylinder is sawn along the intended contour.
- On the convex side of the finished troughs, on both sides, you need to weld the reinforcement for stability, on the empty side to make a separation for personal "plates."
Important! In order to get rid of the smell of gas, it is necessary to treat the cut cylinder with fire (on a fire or a burner).
How much feed to give to pigs: daily calculation
The amount of daily feed per pig depends on its age, sex and weight. Breeders can divide feeding of gilts into three life stages: the dairy stage (from birth to 2 months), the cultivation stage (2-4 months) and the fattening stage (animal weight up to 10 kg, age up to 8-9 months).
It will be useful for you to read about how to properly feed the pigs, how to prepare the feed mixture for pigs, how to find out the weight of an animal without weights, and how the process of slaughter pigs.In this case, the diet should include feed, saturated with all the necessary natural elements for normal growth and weight gain pigs.
So, during the milk period, the piglets need to:
- up to 14 days - 25-30 g of feed per day;
- from 14 to 30 days - 360 g per day;
- from 30 days to 2 months - 850 g per day.
- 3 months - 1 kg per day;
- 4 months - 1.5 kg per day.
Feeding period:
- 5 months - 2.2 kg per day;
- 6 months - 2.5 kg per day;
- 7 months - 3.2 kg per day;
- 8 months - 3.3 kg per day.
Did you know? An adult and even fat pig can travel a distance of 1 km in just 5 minutes!
Summarize. As already mentioned, before you start a farm, you need to think about the feeders for pets. Making a pig feeder with your own hands will save money on the purchase of such products, and you should remember that each pig must have its own bowl, otherwise they will crowd and someone will definitely go hungry.